Yankees 11, Orioles 3

Mazzilli's Reunion With Torre Is Rough

By TYLER KEPNER

Published: May 26, 2004

BALTIMORE, May 25 - Lee Mazzilli had never faced the Yankees as a manager, never looked across the field and seen Joe Torre, his friend and mentor, doing the same job in the other dugout.

"It's going to be a little strange, no question," Mazzilli said around 4:30 on Tuesday, before his Baltimore Orioles played host to Torre's Yankees. "The big thing is going to be trying to keep your emotions out of the game. Put my guys out on the field and just let them play."

Seven hours later, Mazzilli might have wished he had a few of Torre's guys. The Yankees overwhelmed the sliding Orioles, 11-3, behind seven swift innings from their starter, Jon Lieber, and a barrage of hits against every pitcher Mazzilli used.

"That," Mazzilli said afterward, "wasn't what I planned."

For the Yankees, the game unfolded precisely as planned. They drew 5 walks and piled up 14 hits, including at least one from every hitter in the starting lineup. And they got another solid performance from Lieber (4-1), who withstood a 78-minute rain delay after two innings and gave up four hits and two unearned runs, walking one and keeping his fielders alert.

"You're not out there very long," shortstop Derek Jeter said. "He gets you back in the dugout pretty quick."

The Yankees could not wait to hit. Enrique Wilson had four runs batted in, Hideki Matsui reached base five times and Alex Rodriguez blasted a three-run homer. Jeter went 1 for 6 with a double, his average falling by a point, to .189.

Jeter was robbed in the fourth inning when the Orioles' third baseman, Melvin Mora, dived across the third-base line to snare a hard ground ball. Torre told Jeter that Mora must have been chatting with the third-base coach, Luis Sojo, because there was no other reason to be playing Jeter, an opposite-field hitter, so close to the line.

"That's how it's been going," Jeter said. "Nothing surprises me now."

Rodriguez had the game's biggest hit, a sixth-inning homer to center field off Mike DeJean that stretched the Yankees' lead to 8-0. It was a better effort than he could have expected in the pregame hours, when he vomited twice after what he said was a 45-minute cab ride through the Inner Harbor after lunch.

"It might have been 25 minutes, but it felt like an hour," Rodriguez said, "especially when you have your chicken sandwich sliding up to your esophagus, back and forth."

Rodriguez has settled in with the Yankees, reaching base in his past 33 games and raising his average to .297. The other prize addition to the lineup, Gary Sheffield, is taking longer to adjust. Sheffield's hit on Tuesday was an infield chopper he lunged for and beat out, a weak grounder to the left side that highlighted his jumpiness at the plate.

Sheffield, batting .265 with three homers, offered an unusual theory for his ordinary performance. After initially declining to analyze his hitting before the game, he went on to say that he does not hit bad pitching.

"When I face tough pitchers, I'm at my best," Sheffield said. "When you're talking about kids you don't know that aren't all that difficult to face, that's when I have my problems."

Sheffield seemed to be offering the standard baseball logic that the pitcher has the advantage over the hitter when neither has faced the other much. But he went on to call this a career-long issue, saying that he gets too eager when he is facing lesser pitching.

"I always have problems with the 4 and 5 starters," Sheffield said. "The first three pitchers, I do my best against. My thing is, I like challenges. When I'm facing a guy I know shouldn't get me out, those are the hardest guys to be patient with. I know it, they know it, and I pretty much go chasing. It's my fault. It's more me than them."

There is merit to Sheffield's claim, at least for this season. In 27 at-bats this year against Bartolo Col&#243;n, Tim Hudson, Pedro Mart&#237;nez, Jamie Moyer, Mark Mulder, Curt Schilling and Barry Zito, Sheffield has nine hits, for a .333 average. His homers have come off Moyer, Zito and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' ace, Victor Zambrano.

The Orioles offered no aces to Sheffield on Tuesday. The rookie starter Erik Bedard lasted four innings, and the pitcher who followed, Denny Bautista, gave up four runs in his major league debut. The veteran DeJean has a 9.19 earned run average.

The loss was the fifth in a row for the Orioles, and Torre knew his prot&#233;g&#233; would not be pleased. Such is baseball.

"One of us has to be happy," Torre, 63, said. "And I'm glad it's me, because I'm older."

INSIDE PITCH

Center fielder Kenny Lofton missed the game because of tightness in his left hamstring, a condition that surfaced Sunday in Texas. "He was available, but he still feels it," Manager Joe Torre said. "So we'll take it day by day." The Yankees released the left-hander DONOVAN OSBORNE, who made two starts and seven relief appearances but was replaced on the roster by TANYON STURTZE. Reliever STEVE KARSAY (shoulder) threw 45 pitches in a simulated game in Tampa, Fla., and will start at extended spring training on Saturday. The Yankees' starting lineup Tuesday included five switch-hitters for just the second time since 1973.